The Rough Guide to Evolution
An eclectic blog on evolution, Darwin & bacterial pathogenomics
based loosely around the book The truth about enzyte Rough Guide to Evolution, written by Mark Pallen.
Any opinions expressed are mine and not my publisher's...
See also: Rough Guide to Evolution on Facebook.
Subscribe To
Posts
All Comments
Top Stories
Blog Archive
▼ 2008 (76)
▼ November (1)
The Book is Here!
► October (22)
► September (20)
► August (26)
► July (7)
The publication in 1859 of Charles Darwin’s masterpiece The Origin of Species changed forever the way we think about life on Earth, but also the human condition. One hundred and fifty years later—and 200 years after his birth—Darwin's big idea has never been more relevant or more challenging. The Rough Guide to Evolution provides a readable introduction to evolution and its influence on almost all aspects of human thought.
Features include:
The life and works of Darwin.
The growth of evolutionary thought.
The evidence for evolution.
The evolutionary history of life on Earth and human evolution
How Darwin’s breakthrough is still denied by creationists.
The wider impact of evolutionary thinking on science and society—from physics and cosmology to Guinness ads and The Simpsons.
About Me
Mark Pallen
I am Professor of Microbial Genomics at the University of Birmingham in England.
I obtained my medical education from the University of Cambridge and the London Hospital Medical College. I completed my specialist training as a medical microbiologist at Bart’s Hospital in London. In the mid-1990s, while completing a PhD in molecular bacteriology at Imperial College, London, I led a team of students to victory in the national quiz show University Challenge. In 1999, I took up a chair in microbiology at Queen’s University Belfast before moving to my current position in Birmingham in 2001.
Meet me on Facebook
View my complete profile
Bacterial Pathogenomics
my other (edited) book...
Blogroll
Pharyngula
The dumbification of Spore
56 minutes ago
Evolving Thoughts
Orthodox Jews and evolution
11 hours ago
The Dispersal of Darwin
Natural History Museum
11 hours ago
Not Exactly Rocket Science
Loss of traditional knowledge in the Amazon leads to poorer child health
18 hours ago
john hawks weblog
Galili femoral anatomy
1 day ago
The Loom
A Career In Ink
1 day ago
The Panda's Thumb
Nature Endorses Obama
2 days ago
Genetic Future
Genetic testing for career advice
2 days ago
The Beagle Project Blog
Help save Darwin's mockingbirds
2 days ago
Olivia Judson
4 days ago
The Red Notebook
Life on Mars!
1 week ago
RC Jet International
October/November Issue
1 week ago
T. taxus
The Genome Sequence of Phaeodactylum tricornutum
2 weeks ago
Origin of Species in Dub
One of my more unusual creations: Darwin's masterpiece as a reggae album
Bacterial Pathogenomics: My review in the journal Nature
Labels
Abraham Lincoln (2)
Adam Smith (1)
Alfred Russel Wallace (1)
Andrew Marr (1)
animal phyla (1)
animation (1)
Arabic (1)
art (1)
artificial life (1)
atheism (1)
ATPase (1)
Australia (1)
Baba Brinkman (1)
bacterial evolution (2)
bacterial flagellum (4)
Banco del Mutuo Soccorso (1)
Barack Obama (4)
BBC (1)
BCSE (1)
Beagle (1)
Beagle 2 (1)
Bible belt (1)
biblical literalism (1)
Bill Bailey (1)
bioinformatics (1)
Birmingham (1)
BLAST (1)
Brian Eno (1)
Cambrian explosion (1)
Canadian election (1)
cancer (2)
Carl Zimmer (1)
CDS (1)
Charles Darwin (22)
coding sequence (1)
Concept Album (1)
copyright (1)
Cornwall (1)
Creation(Film) (1)
creationism (3)
DA Henderson (1)
Darwin (2)
Darwin at home (1)
Darwin Day (1)
darwin myths (1)
Darwin Online (1)
Darwin's delay (1)
Darwin's finches (1)
Darwin-Wedgwood family (1)
Darwin200 (1)
Darwinia (1)
Darwinian publishing (1)
Des'ree (1)
Descent of Man (1)
Drama (1)
Earth Wind and Fire (1)
Economics (2)
Ediacaran biota (1)
Edinburgh (1)
education (1)
effectors (1)
Emma Darwin (1)
Emma Darwin (novelist) (1)
Erasmus Darwin (1)
Escherichia coli (1)
Esperanto (1)
Eugene Koonin (1)
Europe (1)
Evolution (5)
Evolutionary economics (2)
evolutionary tourism (2)
Expelled (1)
Falco (1)
fig trees (1)
FliF (1)
FliH (1)
FliI (1)
gene (1)
genome sequencing (1)
Gillian Beer (1)
ginger hair (1)
Greg Winter (1)
gullability (1)
Halevi (1)
Hebrew (1)
HeLa cells (1)
Herbert Spencer (1)
Heroes (1)
Hip-hop (1)
Hitler (1)
HMS Beagle (2)
homology (2)
human evolution (2)
Indonesia (1)
intelligent design (1)
Ireland (1)
Jamaica (1)
Jared Diamond (1)
jews Arabs (1)
John Hawks (1)
John McCain (2)
John van Wyhe (1)
Joseph Priestley (1)
Josiah Wedgwood (2)
Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1)
Judaism (1)
Jules Verne (1)
Karl Marx (1)
Kate Berens (1)
Keiichi Namba (3)
Kennedy (1)
Klingon (2)
KNTV (1)
Languages (1)
Lauri Lebo (2)
linguistic evolution (1)
Lunar Society (2)
march of progress (1)
Marcus Garvey (1)
Martin Luther (1)
Matthew Arnold (1)
MC Frontalot (1)
MC1R (1)
Michael Behe (1)
Michael Palin (1)
miracles (1)
model organisms (1)
monkeys (1)
Monty Python (1)
movies (2)
music (5)
mutation (1)
natural selection (2)
Nature (1)
Nazis (1)
Neanderthal (1)
nerdcore (1)
next-generation sequencing (1)
Nick Loman (1)
Nick Matzke (3)
novels (1)
Open University (1)
Orangutan (1)
ORF (1)
Origin of Species (1)
Origin of Species in Dub (1)
Palestinians (1)
penguins (1)
Plays (1)
poetry (1)
Pop music (1)
poverty (1)
Progrock (3)
Rap (1)
red hair (1)
reggae (1)
Richard Dawkins (2)
Rick Wakeman (1)
rock (1)
Ron Numbers (1)
Rough Guide to Evolution (1)
Rough Guide to Videogames (1)
Rough Guides (1)
rudimentary organs (1)
Sarah Palin (4)
Schleicher (1)
Scopes trial (1)
Second Life (1)
sex (1)
sexual selection (1)
Shrewsbury (1)
smallpox (1)
Snowball Earth (1)
social Darwinism (2)
Soho House (1)
South America (1)
Spore (1)
Steve Jones (1)
Suzy Quatro (1)
teaching (1)
The Holocaust (1)
The Rough Guide to Evolution (1)
Thomas Huxley (1)
Thomas Paine (1)
Tohru Minamino (1)
Toldot Adam (1)
tree of life (1)
Trichoplax (1)
TV shows (2)
type III secretion (3)
university of Birmingham (3)
USA (1)
video games (1)
Videogames (1)
viral evolution (1)
vulgarity (1)
Wikipedia (1)
YouTube (2)
Feedjit Live Traffic FeedLive traffic feed
Krasnodar, Krasnodar arrived from google.com on "The Rough Guide to Evolution"
Washington, District of Columbia left "The Rough Guide to Evolution" via amazon.com
Washington, District of Columbia arrived on "The Rough Guide to Evolution: The Book is Here!"
London, London arrived from google.co.uk on "The Rough Guide to Evolution: Human evolution over or speeding up?"
United Kingdom arrived from google.co.uk on "The Rough Guide to Evolution: Evolution rocks!"
Birmingham, Birmingham arrived on "The Rough Guide to Evolution"
Lima, Ohio arrived from google.com on "The Rough Guide to Evolution: Palin-ological scatology"
United Kingdom arrived on "The Rough Guide to Evolution: 2009, Tom Paine's Remains and Darwin"
Odense, Fyn arrived from google.com on "The Rough Guide to Evolution: Of figs and fusions: Darwin's great tree of life rehabilitated?"
Worcester, Worcestershire arrived from google.co.uk on "The Rough Guide to Evolution: Evolution and Poverty: Great is our Sin"
Watch in Real-Time
Options>>
Click to get FEEDJIT
Feedjit Live Traffic MapRecent Visitors
Click the map to Zoom In
Click to get FEEDJIT
Sunday, November 2, 2008
The Book is Here!
A couple of days ago I returned from a short holiday in Sicily to discover five advance copies of The Rough Guide to Evolution in the post! It is thrilling to see something which started off as just an idea culminating as a finished product! Although I wrote it and had seen all bar the index and final few pages as proofs, it is another thing entirely to hold the book in my own hands.
Now, with the passage of time since I wrote it, I can almost start to read it as if it were written by someone else. I hope I won't appear smug if I say that I thoroughly pleased with the whole product. OK, there are a few typos that slipped past myself, the editor and the proofreader--I expect Dawkins will tolerate being called "arguably the world [sic] best science writer", although he might quibble about the "arguably"!
But in compensation for the typos, there are a few last minute changes and additions that improve upon what I have seen in proof. The image of Heston's inter-species kiss, which, as I pointed put in an earlier posting, we weren't allowed to use on the cover, now appears in the section on Evolution in science fiction.
The two cover images, which epitomise contemporary biology (a chimp on the front) and the history of evolution (Darwin on the back) have now been joined by an iconic image from palaeobiology for the inside front cover (an Archaeopteryx). And fittingly, the last image in the book is of the label for Wasatch Evolution Amber Ale, in the section on Darwinian retail!
Thumbing through the index is also a delight, bringing home the reality of just how much I have been able to cover in this small but densely packed volume and emphasising the uniquely eclectic reach of the work. Where else would you find indexed together in the same volume under the same letter:
Behe, Michael
Biblical manuscripts, evolution of
breasts, evolution of
or
Malthus, Thomas
Marley, Bob
Megalonyx jeffersonii
Moby Dick
Muslim responses to evolution
In fact, I have to smile at the way in which I have managed to include multiple references to the city in which I work (Birmingham, England 9, 21, 80, 158, 188, 237) and to another enduring interest of mine (reggae music 74-75, 92, 262, 267), as well as a reference to one of John Maynard Smith's rude neologisms (sneaky fucker mating strategy 127).
I should emphasise at this point that what I have are five advance copies of the book, that have been airfreighted to the Rough Guides office. It is not yet on sale. The book has been printed in Hong Kong and is now on its way to Europe and the US, quite literally, on a slow boat from China! The staff at Rough Guides assure me that we are on target for having it on sale before Christmas, but quite when it will appear in which shop or online outlet will depend also on the efficiency of the retailer's ordering and supply chains. Amazon. com are advertising a December 15th release date, so US readers should get it in time for Christmas.
Go on: pre-order it now! You won't be disappointed!!
Posted by Mark Pallen at 12:40 AM 0 comments Links to this post
Labels: The Rough Guide to Evolution
Friday, October 31, 2008
Of figs and fusions: Darwin's great tree of life rehabilitated?
In one of his notebooks, Darwin sketched an iconic figure of the tree of life, prefaced by a pregnant "I Think" (see adjacent image). Darwin also wrote some of his finest prose about the tree of life in the Origin of Species:
"The affinities of all the beings of the same class have sometimes been represented by a great tree. I believe this simile largely speaks the truth... As buds give rise by growth to fresh buds, and these, if vigorous, branch out and overtop on all sides many a feebler branch, so by generation I believe it has been with the great Tree of Life, which fills with its dead and broken branches the crust of the earth, and covers the surface with its ever branching and beautiful ramifications."
But in recent years there has been a great deal of fuss about whether it is still acceptable to talk about a tree of life and whether we should instead be talking about a ring of life or net of life, because there appear to have been many fusions between different lineages, particularly early in life's history, in addition to the lineage splittings that underlie a traditional branching phylogeny.
And, yeah, I get the point, if your idea of a tree is similar to the tree drawn by Darwin's associate Haeckel, a boring old deciduous tree from northern Europe or North America, with a single trunk and no fusions between trunks or branches.
But for me the tree simile still "largely speaks the truth"--you just have to broaden your idea of what a tree looks like!
Here are some images of a fig tree that I snapped while on a recent holiday in Sicily. Here you can see what appear to be rampant fusions between trunks and branches*. To me this suggests that Darwin's simile is fine, so long as you think fig tree, not oak tree!
*OK, I realise that in fact these apparent fusions between branches are the result of aerial roots arising from branches that then grow downloads, but for a simile to work, it doesn't need to be accurate in every detail! |
